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The Burmese junta, which has declared three days of mourning for the cyclone’s victims, is notoriously unresponsive to pressure, whether from bloggers, foreign governments or its own people — the vast majority of whom have no access to the internet.

Inside Burma the older technology of short wave radio, which carries the BBC’s Burmese service, is the principal medium of impartial news.

But there are signs that the junta is adjusting its policy on foreign aid, whether in response to internet coverage or not.

Although foreign aid workers are still mostly barred from the country and the United Nations says only 30 per cent of the 2.5 million cyclone survivors have received any aid, the UN humanitarian chief John Holmes was allowed to visit the shattered Irrawaddy delta today, following a visit by the Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown.

At a meeting of south-east Asian foreign ministers in Singapore today, the junta agreed to allow medical teams from neighbouring countries in and to channel foreign aid through Asian governments. There will be a donor conference in Rangoon on Sunday.